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Emily Kwong and Linda Kwong

People often come to StoryCorps to record difficult conversations that they’ve never been able to have before. That’s how Linda Kwong and her daughter Emily came to our recording booth to talk about a tough time they were going through as a family.

In 2012, Emily Kwong was a college senior studying in New York. Just before finals, she received a disturbing phone call from her father. Her mother, Linda, who had been suffering from depression, had attempted suicide.

At StoryCorps, Linda and Emily talk for the first time about what happened that day.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 for help.

Top Photo: Emily Kwong (left) and her mother, Linda, at their StoryCorps interview in 2013.

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Transcript

LK: I got up and I was taking my morning medication and I just didn’t stop. And I took 180 pills. I didn’t write a note. I just put the bottles back in the medicine cabinet and went to bed.

Your sister found me and they took me to the hospital. The psychiatrist came in and he said, ’Linda, I have no idea how you’re alive.’

EK: I was so shocked because I had known you my whole life as the most secure person.

LK: Yeah, I actually faked a lot. I never faked my love for you but I was suicidal since I was 14, so I was a good faker.

EK: Well that’s what was so puzzling about it. I described our family as a table, and you were the most important leg. So you disappearing just knocked the whole thing over.

LK: Yeah. When I was in the hospital, the hospital’s tradition is they would play a little lullaby every time a baby’s born, no matter what time of day or night. So on the psychiatric floor we heard it. And I thought about when you were born, and they handed you to me and I remember your eyes just locked on mine. And I just felt, ’Wow, this is my daughter.’ But, in that moment that I took those pills, I wasn’t thinking of you. And that’s hard to accept.

EK: I began to question so much about myself and I thought, if I spent too much time with you, I would become like you.

LK: I remember you saying to me, ’Mom, I couldn’t even look at you for months.’ And it was terrifying but I understood it. A child’s job is to be a child, not to take care of their mother emotionally.

EK: I mean, I know it’s not over yet, but seeing you come back from this, I couldn’t be more proud of you.

LK: I can’t believe that you can use the word ”proud,” but it makes me feel like that bond between us will always be there. And that means the world to me.